


reloadable, disposable

by mushydesserts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Awkward Conversations, Brotherhood-era, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Noctis in fishnets and thigh-highs, Photographer Prompto, Prompto's probably the romeo, Shakespeare Misquotes, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, Unresolved Sexual Tension, eyeliner might also make a cameo, gunslinger Prompto, i guess, teen boys being idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-18 03:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12379521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushydesserts/pseuds/mushydesserts
Summary: It starts with a photograph that Ignis holds up in front of Noctis one day when he's sixteen, seventeen soon, a drowsy, clumsy, scowling Sunday morning crumpled in bed, the kind Ignis always drops by on to make sure Noctis's done his homework for the dreary Monday to come.Noctis takes a couple blinks to register it in the shades-down sunlight of his apartment bedroom, and then snatches the phone out of Ignis's hand, bolting up, hair standing on end, incensed and red in the face."That wasprivate,"Noctis hisses."You, Highness, are a public figure," Ignis says mildly. "Nothing in your life is private."(Prompto and Noctis, and the years nobody will remember.)





	reloadable, disposable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swordliliesandebony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordliliesandebony/gifts).



> Takes place Brotherhood-era-ish, up to the game proper. 
> 
> The request was for Ignis giving one of the boys A Talk, but of course Ignis can't just give _one_ of the boys _A_ Talk, so here's a bunch of Talks, sort of. Enjoy!

 

It starts with a photograph.

(It'll end with a photograph, too, but neither of them know that yet. They won't know it for a long time, not for a blessedly long time, nearly fifteen years of photographs and sun and sweat and laughter in between, successes and failures and distances travelled, loved ones picked up and lost along the way.)

\---

It starts with a photograph that Ignis holds up in front of Noctis one day when he's sixteen, seventeen soon, a drowsy, clumsy, scowling Sunday morning crumpled in bed, the kind Ignis always drops by on to make sure Noctis's done his homework for the dreary Monday to come.

Noctis takes a couple blinks to register it in the shades-down sunlight of his apartment bedroom, and then snatches the phone out of Ignis's hand, bolting up, hair standing on end, incensed and red in the face.

"That was _private,"_ Noctis hisses.

"You, Highness, are a public figure," Ignis says mildly. "Nothing in your life is private."

"It should be," Noctis snaps, phone pressed into his mattress with the heel of his back hand, like a cat hiding an injured paw.

Ignis looks at him then, arms crossed, a shadow of sympathy flickering across his face, and doesn't deny it.

Behind Noctis, the photograph is a smear of reckless pixels, a boy who could be prince — who would be prince — nothing but white skin and dark fringe, smoky smudges of dark rimming his eyes, bones sharp through the thin black leather hugging narrow hips, fishnet sleeves and flashes of white thigh above tugged-high boots and a bit of a smirk dancing on his lips in answer to the invisible snickers, just offscreen, glare of camera flash off bathroom tiles, room for two, room for two boys, grinning on a lost night out on the town.

This is not the first conversation they have about it.

\---

(The first conversation they have about it is on a sunny afternoon several months prior, green leaves casting sidewalk shade in front of the school, Ignis dropping by to pick up Noctis after school in preparation for an event that evening at the Citadel.

Ignis is leaning against the driver's side door in the shadow, heat gleaming off the black metal and the glass, and Noctis ambles slowly in time with the crowd of students letting out, following the current. Ignis waits patiently, keys in hand, and watches the tiny smile crook the side of Noctis's mouth, eyes flickering to the right, in the direction of the chatter in his ear.

As Noctis approaches, the source of the chatter peels off, a blur of yellow spikes and wide grin, tie half-undone, the lingering pressure of an elbow slung over the quieter boy's shoulders, a bookbag thrown carelessly to the side. There's an exchange of mutters and a punch to the arm, and brilliant, brilliant laughter, and then a whirl of uniform and lanky legs, and Noctis looks back for a moment, then closes the gap between himself and Ignis, leisurely pace, measured expression.

"So he's the one," Ignis says when Noctis nears.

Noctis's mouth evens out. He opens the door and gets in the car.

It's not a conversation, but it sort of is.)

\---

The first _real_ conversation Noctis and Ignis have about it is about safe sex, because of course it is.

Emotions can be put off for another day, as far as both Noctis and Ignis and quite probably the rest of the Crown administration are concerned. Sexual safety, however, is a matter of physical well-being, and where Gladio's expertise probably wouldn't go amiss, the topic is somewhat outside of his mandate; and so it falls to Ignis to educate the Prince.

"I know the basics," Noctis snarls as soon as it become clear what they're talking about. Embarrassment has him fuming as usual, and Ignis is unfazed. "We aren't — I'm not _doing it."_

"At least pregnancy doesn't appear to be a concern here," Ignis goes on. "Nevertheless, we should review it for the day it does become relevant." Because it will, of course, the Line of Lucis must continue, Noctis _knows,_ but —

"Just give me the damn booklet," Noctis says tightly, swiping it out of Ignis's hand.

"And I suppose that pamphlet won't wind up in the bin like all the others?" Ignis says wearily.

Noctis fidgets with the booklet, glossy paper twisting between his fingers as he scowls over the back of the couch. "Look — nothing's happened," he says, but his voice cracks, as if breaking over a lie, or over something that at least isn't quite a truth.

There's a memory card burning a hole in his pocket, and while nothing on it is incriminating, not the way the tabloids would have you believe — there's a reel of smiles on there, goofy grins and crinkled eyes, freckles too close and teeth too white, enough there to give an Imperial pause, to press on, searching for the give.

Ignis knows. Noctis can tell.

\---

If you asked Prompto, the first conversation he and Ignis have about Noctis goes like this:

_fucking FUCK Astrals holy SHIT oh Gods I'm GOING TO die HELP me_

Prompto remembers Ignis's mouth moving, but he can't hear the words, and he won't hear a single word past _we need to talk about your relationship with the Prince,_ though he will nod fervently throughout the conversation anyway.

"Do you understand?" Ignis says.

"Yes sir I do, I really really do," Prompto says.

Somewhere behind Ignis, Noctis's bodyguard is leaning against the wall, dark eyes flicking up and down Prompto's form. He doesn't say a word. Ignis opens his mouth again.

_six ABOVE plEASE have mercy i swear i'll be good just DON'T let them kill me_

"We shall be in touch," Ignis says, and Gladio nods, and Prompto experiences something akin to heart failure.

All in all, it could have gone much worse.

\---

(Months later, Prompto will sigh dreamily into the blue sky, his arms folded behind his head. "Hey, Noct."

Noctis will frown and turn a page in his magazine, idly lying in the grass. "Yeah?"

"Remember that time your dad sent Ignis and Gladio to kill me?"

Noctis will grunt, flicking a bit of fluff off the page. "I already told you, my dad doesn't know about you. And Ignis doesn't kill people. It's just his job to check you out and make sure you're okay."

"And if I'm not okay?"

"They send Gladio in."

Prompto will hum, relaxed, and close his eyes. "Hey, Noct. Remember that time Ignis and Gladio tried to kill me?"

"You're still alive, Prompto."

"Good times.")

\---

Prompto and Noctis are, in the old parlance, inseparable. Everybody knows it.

This doesn't stop their relationship from being a pain in the ass for someone, somewhere, at all times.

\---

The solution Ignis comes up with for that first headache is very Ignis: elegant, simple, almost sentimental in its impracticality.

He drops the carton in Noctis's hand one morning before school: wrapped in sterile white paper, like something from a drugstore, like prophylactics or analgesics or maybe a bit of both.

"Disposable," he says as Noctis slides out the box, rectangular, just wider than the palm of his hand. "No metadata, no security bugs, no residual copies."

The camera is plastic. There's a tiny dial to crank the film, a low flash led, a serial number on the bottom. A slot to spit out the photographs in the form of a reel of low-tech squares of film. Noctis turns it over, examines it over the narrow kitchen counter as Ignis stands by, arms crossed.

"There's a tracker on it," Noctis posits.

"Naturally," Ignis says. "Nobody could tamper with it without our knowledge."

Noctis slides it back into the box, carefully, more carefully than he does most things. He wraps it back in its paper.

The exchange takes place between the first bell and the second, slid across the bleached wooden desk, unimposing and casual as if it weren't a sign of something, as if approval was as easily sought and won as all that, a conversation anticipated and dreaded, in the making for seventeen years and some months in gestation. Around them, the other kids carry on oblivious: nattering and gossiping about the party three nights ago, about the upcoming concert, about the results of the algebra quiz and the football tryouts and the kid who got expelled for snorting powdered magnanir horn out in the west wing girls' room.

"He-ello," says the man of the hour, word drawn out into three syllables.

Noctis sits down.

"It's got 24 shots?" Snap. Click. The sound of the crank, whirring, and the _flip_ of film.

"23 now," Noctis says, watching Prompto. "We can get you another one if you run out."

Prompto, elbows on the desk, early morning light coming in through the window setting the tips of his hair alight, peers through the viewfinder. He makes the corner of a frame with his thumb and forefinger round Noctis's jaw and ear. "I feel like I'm on a secret recon mission," Prompto says, grin conspiratorial, one eye closed. "Target confirmed: the Noctis. At oh-eight-one-five. Target located in its natural habitat..."

If anybody would ask, Noctis would say he feels a tug at his heart then, like a string yanking, and then the bell rings and Prompto turns around in his chair and the plastic disappears into his pocket, and maybe whatever it was has pulled his throat tight, because he feels his chest swelling, too.

\---

Prompto and Noctis are inseparable. Everybody knows it.

They don't know _how_ it all began, where, the chubby little boy and the dog and the quiet spot near the window. And they don't know where it _goes,_ socks up against the oven door sitting on the kitchen tiles with their backs against the fridge waiting for the pizza to cook, crammed in bus shelters during rainstorms and arcade booths during shitstorms, the wrong end of red carpets and the other side of closed doors, pretending not to notice the Crownsguard secret service agents hovering a block over.

But life in a city under siege is about the minutiae, and nobody remembers Prompto and Noctis before they were _Prompto and Noctis_. Noctis is a Prince of some sort, and Prompto's from somewhere beyond the Wall, and hey, maybe in a generation, it won't matter anymore anyway.

\---

_"Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-browed night..."_

The quaver echoes down the third floor corridor of the building, late afternoon light a blinding amber through the bank of windows running the length of the hallway outside the classrooms. There's yelling on the football pitch outside and the ruckus of rehearsal from the music room, half a dozen muffled brass instruments struggling to find their tune, but here, in the narrow space between sliding doors and stacks of old wooden chairs and a mop in a bucket and a pile of discarded presentation boards pasted over with faded colored paper, there's just enough audible space for a breathy, passionate monologue, whispered into the dusty air like a prayer.

_"And when I shall die! Take him and cut him out in little stars. And he will make the face of heaven so fine — that all the world will be in love with Night..."_

Leaning against an upturned desk, arms folded, tablecloth draped over his shoulders and faint smirk on his lips: "Remind me why you aren't playing this part."

The paper mask is whipped off and Prompto grins, tiara lopsided, as someone from inside one of the adjacent rooms lets out a cry like a dying dualhorn: _Oh, I am Slain!_

"I'm set design, remember? You're the one who dozed off until all the other parts were taken."

"You clearly missed your calling," Noctis says.

"I don't know, I don't think I could _brood_ quite like royalty," Prompto snickers, and waves the script with a flourish.

Noctis takes it, flicking to the next page of highlighted text. "What was it again," he says thoughtfully. "'Royal Pain in the Ass', or 'Pain in the Royal Ass'?"

(Or _The Royal Pains In The Asses_ , collectively known as; as the entire Crownsguard and their superiors could attest; Gladio had told Noctis that there was a call code just for them, the Prince and the Pauper, though it was rarely used for anything but sharing the best gossip.)

"The Royal _Something_ In The Ass, that's for sure," Prompto says, winks and points and snaps, flush behind his freckles. "We should get matching t-shirts. What's my royal title?"

Noctis squints at the page. "You don't get one."

"Come on, man! Everybody else we know gets one. How do you introduce me to people?"

(Noctis thinks back, _How'd those two start hanging out anyway? Argentum? Think he swapped in from another school in junior high or something. Did they know each other before? Before what? Is it because he gives him head? Ooh. You're just jealous because nobody wants to put their dick within a mile your mouth. As if!)_

Noctis's mouth twists. "I think they think it's a kinky thing," he says, trying for a poker face and looking sour.

The gleam in Prompto's eyes flashes like the glint of metal on the end of the fishing line, and the quaver returns immediately, "Oh _yes_ sir, your Highness sir, this lowly one has been bad. Will it be fifty lashes, your Highness, sir? I beg your Highness, sir, be _gentle,"_ and Noctis flings the tablecloth aside, and the script is rolled up in his hand, and there's Prompto's laughter stumbling down the hall, and that photograph goes into the pages of one of Noctis's comic books in his room a month later, skewed tiara and mask and cape and two mingled grins.

\---

The general populace are broadly skeptical that the Prince ever actually does any work. It's not as if he needs income, and how does a Prince ever fail out of school anyway, public or not? ("Like this," Noctis is fond of saying, before turning over and going back to his nap.)

They're not wrong. Yes, he does do the work, but no, not particularly well. It's Prompto who does well, and Prompto who's managed to make it look effortless (through years of long practice, up at dawn and round the circuit, stopwatches and wrist bands and very good time management), so that he's always, somehow, free, _yeah what's up Noct, nothing much, sure, yup, see you in ten?_

So their summer that year isn't all that different from the spring or the fall preceding: wandering aimlessly down the narrow streets outside the internet cafes and the karaoke bars, bookbags or duffel bags over their shoulders, a soda or pudding milk or carton of iced tea half-crushed in their hands, looking for the next game shop, or waffle stand, or street market or maid-cafe or beetle-fighting bar or whatever there is to do that night, whatever passes the hours, whatever'll pass the time until the weekend, evenings bleed into mornings, neon lights and sunrises, front doors slamming in two silent apartments at dawn, pairs of shoes toed off onto pair of mats, a breathless moment lingering over a lit-up rectangle of screen just inside the entryway, fingers hovering, muffled snicker, waiting for a reply.

Sometimes it's just one silent apartment, and sometimes there's no waiting: just muffled swearing, and peals of laughter, and stumbling over shoes and the crash of the coat rack and the occasional _fuck I think you really did something to it, shut up, seriously, can you stand or what?_

\---

(A Wednesday morning meeting in the Royal Office. The King in attendance, and the Shield, and his Senior Advisor; Ignis, too, and Noctis, standing impassive with his back to the door, feet set firmly on the lavish carpet in front of the wide oak desk:

"It was an accident. Broke the arm in a slip-and-fall," Noctis will say, thrusting the arm in question forward for inspection.

There will be the brief, barely-perceptible shift in Clarus Amicitia's left eyebrow. Nobody else will move, except Ignis, who will lower his head just slightly, back ramrod-straight, hands folded behind him.

"Uh — I tripped over a doormat." The statement will be left to fend for itself, and will die brutally in the air.

"Did you?" the King will say.

"It's been dealt with," Noctis will add hastily. "I had Ignis draft up a bylaw. Banning doormats."

"We shall have to run that by the Legislative Council, then," the King will say amicably, as Ignis subtly moves all his weight to his right foot, which looks about to lift off on its own, possibly towards a Princely rear. "And Gladiolus?"

"He's fine, he tripped over a traffic cone. Uh, we considered banning traffic cones, too. Turns out they're already regulated." Noctis will shrug, or as close to an awkward shrug as the sling around his neck will allow, anyway.

"I see. Do tell him to be more careful in the future, then," the King will say evenly, and that will be the end of that.

Nobody will ever bring up the previous weekend's incognito party out by the West Wall, where you could ride chocobos full-tilt at each other in honor of the Goddess of the Harvest, a grease-smeared young woman from out in Hammerhead; nobody will bring up garish tin helmets or spiced mulled liquor with orange or targets with axes buried inch-deep in peat, or _best two out of three,_ or _bet I could knock you with one hand tied behind my back,_ or _Six Noct, I'm gonna be executed, I'm gonna be put on public display, your dad is gonna flay and burn me alive; shut up Prompto, just get the medic, hey Gladio you can let me down now, sorry about the shoulder._

Ignis will have that bill drafted up, though, and it will be filed in the archives: _An Act Protecting Insomnia's Citizens From The Threat At Our Doorsteps._ Ignis will also scrawl something shockingly obscene on Noctis's cast in indelible ink while he is sleeping the next weekend's hangover off, to be immortalized on exactly one square of film, and nobody will believe it was him, because Ignis? Really? Come now, Noct.)

\---

They do go easier after the arm fiasco, just a little, just for a bit.

"I can't believe you let me get fucking catfished in a video game," Noctis says, throwing the controller down in disgust.

"But dude, that's the beauty of it! Is the girlfriend real or not? You don't know!"

Prompto kicks his foot earnestly. It is six hours into their session. It is the early hours on a Saturday, and only the hall light is on, and there are empty soda cans everywhere, everywhere, Prompto's kick sets tin clattering across the floor. The apartment is kind of stuffy, fan in the corner ghosting air over Noctis's skin, Prompto's leg warm through his jeans pressed against Noctis's side. There are probably guards outside, down the street in a black sedan.

Noctis takes another swig of soda from a plastic cup and makes a face at the kick of alcohol (the what. nothing) at the bottom.

"Come on, you _liked_ it," Prompto scoffs in the dark, the glow of the screen.

Noctis kicks back lightly as a reply, a non-reply, a grudging _yes_. "I'm putting in AssCreed," he says, and it comes out mumbled.

"Again?" Prompto kicks, and their legs tangle, Noctis trying to scramble for the console, and the guards are waiting outside, patient, because Noctis is here, and Prompto is here, and the world is gonna have to wait for them. "So much for expanding _your_ tastes."

"Hell yeah, again, some people have tastes for the _classics,_ " Noctis says, affronted.

_"'A Fantasy based on Reality,'"_ Prompto intones, voice pitched low over the tagline, and Noctis laughs, and it's almost, almost enough.

\---

(Prompto doesn't say anything about it. The guards. He knows. He sees them circling the block when he peeks through the blinds over the window above the kitchen sink.

Prompto likes it.

They're there because Noctis is here, and Noctis is only here as long as he wants to be.)

\---

"You know what you're doing? After." The sentence trails off vaguely, Noctis unwilling to proceed, leaving only uncomfortable silence and the clicking of chains on Prompto's bicycle wheels between them.

The sky overhead is a clear blue arch beyond the overhanging rooves and plant-lined balconies, poles and power lines, children playing ball just down the alley. Noctis is looking at Prompto. Prompto doesn't pick up on anything out of the ordinary, squinting up into the air.

"After graduation?" A pause, thoughtful. "I thought I'd work for a year. You know. Save up. College?" A few more steps, shoes scuffing on concrete. "Do you guys do college? I don't know."

"Iggy's done university. Specialist in two fields. Culinary certification too," Noctis says. "Gladio went straight into the Academy."

"Isn't Ignis like twenty?"

"This year."

"Well, hello again, my inferiority complex, how are you doing," Prompto says. He flicks at a bug that's landed on his shoulder. "You?"

Noctis's gaze drops off. "Schedule's being worked out," he says. He's had a part-time spot at the university reserved for years, and the details are being refined now, nearly a year in advance, while the rest of his classmates sign up for senior-year clubs and practice for tryouts and stress out over entrance exams.

"Huh. Do you at least get the weekends off?"

Noctis shrugs. It depends. "Do you?"

\---

("When you begin to attend court with your father this time next year you will be under far more constant scrutiny," Ignis had said to him that morning.

A package of documents was laid out on Noctis's coffee table, where it had stared at him as he'd gotten dressed. Noctis had finished with his socks and filled a glass with water in the kitchen. "Mhm," he'd said.

Ignis had stood on the other side of the counter, arms crossed. "You will need to decide how the pieces of your life fall into place," he had continued as Noctis drank. "Or such matters will be decided for you."

Ignis had studied him then, eyes sharp, and Noctis had had nowhere else to look as he set the glass down in the sink. "I'm going," he'd muttered, and turned, and left.)

\---

Noctis does get weekends off, it turns out — or three out of four each month, at least. It'll work out pretty well, as it turns out, because they'll usually be the days Prompto gets off from Crownsguard training.

\---

They go through three disposable cameras in a night once.

It's mid-autumn, and there are ceremonies and festivities, and Noctis has to be there, robes and all, to greet his dad's advisors and diplomats and visiting officials: _This is my son, Noctis. He will be joining us next fall after he completes his studies. Yes, well, he takes after his mother._ And Noctis nodding and smiling faintly, _an honor; I look forward to working with you._

Prompto is there, but with the rest of their cohort — there for the crowds and the dancers, the fireworks and the winter cherry blossoms, the fried-squid-on-a-stick and the sweet tea, the lanterns and the dartboard-contest candy and the boats on the river and the city lights long past usual curfew. Prompto chatters and laughs with the girls in class 3-C until he checks his watch at a quarter-to-ten, jams a popsicle in his mouth, and slinks off.

Behind a canvas tent selling novelty cellphone cases and windchimes made out of beer cans, Noctis is wrestling with the hem of his robes and trying not to trip. Prompto picks his way through the tangle of rubber power cables taped to the pavement.

"You gonna wear that all night?" Prompto snorts.

Noctis glares. His gaze flickers down to Prompto's mouth, up again, then down again. Prompto licks the red syrup off his lips, shrugs, and pulls a paper party mask out.

"Your disguise, your Highness," Prompto says, and Noctis whips it out of his hand. It looks like a cat.

When the elastic is settled over Noctis's black hair, already falling out of the shape it had been tamed into for the audience earlier that evening, Prompto tugs Noctis by the hand down the alley and into the crowd, and he doesn't let go until they get to the fried meat stand, Prompto plucking at a stick of cotton candy he'd swiped from somewhere and pressing a plastic cup of iced honey tea into Noctis's hand, sticky already.

It's a miracle nobody stops them — well, once, a sweet lady with a four-year-old daughter, wanting a picture with the Prince — but they're as _nobody_ as it gets, somehow, all the people here, and Noctis wins a ring-toss after four tries, and Prompto drops an entire carton of fishballs in sauce, he's laughing so hard. They help deliver a lost toddler to the guest services, and set a paper boat in the river race and yell at it to go faster dammit, no, to the left, no no no, I order you to stay afloat, and Prompto buys consolation fish and chips for the both of them, and they can only find a seat right next to the concert stage, and the music is so loud they have to shout the rest of the night, and somehow, the next week, Noctis will find a stack, _a stack_ of photographs in Prompto's rucksack, about half of which are just a blur of light, and three spent plastic cameras covered in street food residue.

\---

Late fall is when Ignis arrives at the coffee shop, pausing just inside the door to pull a wool scarf from around his neck. His hair is ever so slightly mussed by the wind, which is as rumpled as Prompto supposes Ignis ever gets. The cashier behind the counter glances up as he enters. Prompto notices her gaze lingering. Ignis pays her no heed.

He makes his way over to Prompto's corner table, frowning at the menu board instead of looking where he's going. Prompto moves his mug of hot chocolate aside, and Ignis drops the heavy book onto the table before he even takes a seat.

Prompto hesitantly turns the book towards himself as Ignis pulls out the chair opposite. The cover is glossy, black with white government-standard font, the golden insignia embossed on one corner. _Issue C-#32091, Crownsguard Manual._

Ignis, now settled, is watching him. Prompto avoids his gaze. Instead, he takes the edge of the cover between his thumb and finger, tentatively peels it back. The spine isn't cracked yet, the card still waiting to be folded and creased.

"Any weapons proficiency?" Ignis says.

Prompto shakes his head mutely, staring at the first page.

Ignis sits back, careful, gloves folded on the tabletop underneath one hand.

"You'll pick it up," he says.

\---

There are three beers heavy in Noctis's stomach and Prompto is drawing on his face.

Noctis is trying not to blink, but there's something unnerving about the wintry blueness of Prompto's eyes, narrowed and fixed, eight inches in front of Noctis's face, his white-blond eyelashes catching the bathroom light. Noctis swallows and frowns at the pen. "Is there glitter in this?"

"Nope. Just your natural shine," Prompto snickers, and Noctis pretends to duck away, but Prompto has his hand on the side of his jaw, fingers on the back of his neck behind his ear, and Noctis stays still, stays good, the liquid black smearing just a little, just enough under Prompto's careful breath.

When he's done, Prompto sits back on his heels, and Noctis turns to the mirror. "What have you ever done for me," Prompto says mournfully, evaluating his handiwork from afar as Noctis flicks his hair out of his eyes and glares at himself.

"Did your nails," Noctis points out.

Prompto sticks up his hand and says, wryly, _thanks,_ the chipped black polish heavier on three fingers, and Noctis grins.

"Just your natural flakiness," he points out, and Prompto's wearing his fishnets, _Prompto_ is wearing _Noctis's_ fishnets, and that's the only reason Noctis doesn't catch the pen on its way to the side of his head, the _thwack_ leaving his ears ringing stupidly.

"Sorry," Prompto says after a slightly horrified pause, and makes a noise when Noctis just slaps him on the ass on the way out the door.

It had been a _fight_ to get a cab instead of the Crownsguard town car and escort. That they're kept waiting and then the driver babbles their ears off all the way across the city is the only reason Noctis can be sure they haven't sent someone undercover anyway. They shove the cash into his hand and tumble out of the back onto a dark street corner into a raucous crowd of kids with booze on the breath and boots they can barely walk in, and Noctis has a fake ID in his pocket because he always has one for security reasons, and Prompto has a fake ID in his pocket because Prompto's never had a real ID in his life, and Noctis licks his finger and twists a strand of Prompto's hair out of the way before they dive into the smoke and the music, the tugging hands and the moving bodies, the up-and-down gazes that constitute queries to which Noctis and Prompto will shake their heads: _I'm here with someone._ I'm here with someone.

Tomorrow, Noctis will be at his dad's side as Regis Lucis Caelum addresses the nation on national television, and the papers will catch his face, sober and bare. This is their last night out on the town, and the history books won't know about it, the only evidence of it jammed into a box under one of their beds to be lost in the fires when Insomnia falls.

\---

(Noctis is a Prince of some sort, and Prompto's from somewhere beyond the Wall, and hey, maybe in a generation, it won't matter anymore anyway.

Didn't you hear? The Wall's coming down. And the Caelum line too — going, going, gone.)

\---

The warehouse is bright and cold, air crisp and dry. The sweat gels and dries under Prompto's gloves, and Prompto has never stood so still in living memory, feet fixed and mouth a tight line.

The paper targets stand at attention, and Prompto barely glances at them: bang, bang, bang, bang, on a line like darkroom prints, muzzle flash, moments stopped in time. Just shapes, holes punched through. Prompto lowers his muffs when there's a break, cautiously, eyes on the prints.

The Crownsguard trainer shifts somewhere behind him. "You've got a knack for this." Her voice is surprised, not disapproving.

Prompto lines up the sights, thumb and forefinger. Something about the motion feels familiar. He swallows. The metal is warm in his grip. "Six shots?"

"Reload."

Prompto releases the catch. The cylinder slides out.

\---

Noctis reads.

He gets more days off than Ignis would like, he suspects — his father's doing, probably. But there are documents, and laws, and texts, and he doesn't have to turn in papers anymore or cram for exams, that's a relief, or it would be if he wasn't expected to actually _know_ this now. He spends hours in the Citadel library, staring out the wide floor-to-ceiling windows at Insomnia, spread out and glittering below, watching the sun rise and draw shadows, the sky bleed from blue to fuchsia to purple and ink-black.

Ignis stops by every so often, laptop out to answer emails or type reports or format spreadsheets or whatever Ignis does. Sometimes he brings up lunch, and they eat in silence, none of the joking or prodding that happens in the evenings off the clock.

It's dull as dirt, and the only high point in the day is that Noctis gets to train with Prompto now down in the Crownsguard halls.

It's different from training with Gladio; Gladio usually had the upper hand, even when Noctis began to use his magic. Prompto's new, and wild, and maybe because he knows he won't have the upper hand in any fair fight, Prompto fights dirty.

Prompto's knees are digging into his sides, thighs to ribs, solid weight on the small of Noctis's back. He smells like sweat and gunpowder and hair gel, and Noctis tries to throw him off, but his legs just clamp down harder.

With his face pressed into the mats and his heart pounding, arm twisted round his back, Noctis hears Prompto's voice low and mirthful in his ear: "'Sup, lover?"

Noctis groans. "Get off me."

Prompto laughs. "Where's your romance, dude?" he says, but relents, rolling off and panting on his back to the side, and Noctis breathes into the mats for a second before pulling himself up.

\---

Prompto and Noctis's first kiss takes place over two half-empty bottles of sake, a bowl of sour key candy and a loud viewing of Anaconduar Hurricane 2.5 in the living room of Prompto's place.

They're holed up with blankets tossed aside, winter nothing but condensation on the windows and drowsy warmth of alcohol in the veins, snickering and chewing on pretzels and a clear morning schedule. They're chatting as much as they're watching, Noctis bitching about this or that hard-ass council member, Prompto relaying stories heard from the Kingsglaive barracks about the commanding officer's torrid love affairs, or the new recruit's intolerance for spicy food, or the ongoing contest to sneak live animals into the locker room, or whatever gets Noctis snorting and inhaling crumbs and Prompto slapping his back.

At one point, Prompto pipes up with barely-suppressed humor, _Hey, Noct?_

_What?_

_You've got like, candy powder on your arm._

_What? Where?_ He sticks out his tongue and licks at his wrist like a cat, and Prompto nearly rolls laughing; Noctis mutters _shut up_ and finds some on his knee, which he also licks, and then his elbow, which he fails to lick, and then he notices the sugar on the side of Prompto's mouth and leans in to lick that too.

Prompto jerks back and chokes through tears, _dude, that's gross,_ and Noctis says _oh yeah?_ and grins and leans in again, and everything tastes like sour candy and liquor, Prompto making noises into Noctis's mouth and Noctis jamming his elbow into Prompto's ribs and a tangle of teen-boy legs before they fall over off the mess of couch cushions, a woman on the television shrieking _they're coming! Oh gods, they're here, they're in the fountains!_ as the red-led clock blinks 3 AM on the kitchen counter.

In the morning, they don't even talk about it. They wake up and groan, _dude I have such a headache,_ and _fuck I can't feel my tongue,_ and they stagger out for hangover ramen, stumbling down the street while leaning on each other, Prompto's shirt backwards and Noctis's inside-out.

\---

(Later, after the Crownsguard initiation ceremony, Noctis will shove Prompto against the wall out back and shove his tongue down Prompto's throat so deep that Prompto won't be sure where one of them starts and the other ends.

_You're mine now,_ he will mutter, and it will be meant to come out as a joke, but it will be said seriously instead, eyes downcast and then up again.

Prompto's smile will waver for just a split second, and then grow back. _You didn't do this with the other guys, did you?_

_Shut up.)_

\---

Four months before Noctis Lucis Caelum's twenty-first birthday, it is announced that Noctis is engaged to Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Oracle and former Princess of Tenebrae, currently a ward of the Empire.

\---

The day after the announcement, Prompto goes through a dozen crates of ammo at the range.

His balance is better now, surer; he'll always be a runner, forward momentum high, but he stands his ground well enough against the recoil. The targets fare worse. When he stops shredding the paper for long enough to lower his muffs and fix his gloves, the old man in the corner — or maybe he's not so old, just worn from watching the recruits go through; the Glaive use this range, and he must see a generation a month — says, "You want a change up?"

Prompto's done all the guns and all the targets at every angle and speed imaginable. He'd swapped the semi-automatic out for the six-shooter half an hour ago; the semi-automatic's faster, but the revolver's Crownsguard-issue, each and every cartridge blessed with whatever it is that makes the Glaives' blades go, metal tinted blue with royal magic, if you bothered to look.

The six-shooter's warm in his hand. He can reload her in four, three seconds now: between blinks.

"Hey, you know," Prompto says quietly.

The man raises his head, inquisitive.

"They say if you pull the trigger with one hand and drop a bullet with the other, the shots hit the ground at the same time." Prompto rolls an empty casing between his nervous fingers. "You think that's true?"

"Same time, maybe. Half the world away though."

Prompto grins weak, raises his arms again as if to line one up. "You think a shot at this height would make it out of Insomnia?"

"If there weren't the Wall?" The man shrugs.

_Just practice rounds._

_Six shots, make them count._

Prompto adjusts the earmuffs.

\---

The last conversation Noctis and Ignis have about Prompto takes place two days after the announcement, in the hallway between the Royal Office and the audience chambers, Noctis not even bothering to twist at the cuffs of his stiff silk shirt, not even bothering to take his hands out of his pockets (they're shaking).

There are officials and guards and reporters milling about just out of earshot. This talk was meant to happen at Noctis's apartment, but the meetings are running late, treaty arrangements keeping everybody at the Citadel around the clock, and Ignis had been watching Noctis quietly since the announcement, out of the corner of his eye. Noctis had let him pull them aside during break, and he can tell Ignis is sorry about this. It isn't Ignis's fault.

Neither of them seem sure what to say now that they have a moment together alone.

It's been — they've known each other for almost two decades now, for as long as they've each been alive. If anybody could have this conversation, it would be them, but somehow it's immensely difficult to start, made worse by the fact that really, they're both aware that nothing they say now could be of much value.

"Your resentment is understandable," Ignis eventually says, subdued. His voice is low enough that Noctis should be barely able hear him, but the words are clear as day. "Your father sold you for peace."

From anybody else, that might have sounded treasonous. But it is Noctis, and this is Ignis's job: to look after his well-being.

Noctis doesn't meet his gaze. It's been days since he's seen Prompto, and forty-odd hours since they spoke on the phone, _dude, I heard,_ and _yeah,_ and awkward, painful silence on both ends for minutes, minutes stretching into eternity.

"What matters more," Noctis says dully. "My life, or the lives of all the people in the city?"

A door opens somewhere down the hall to a press room, and a burst of chatter spills out, silencing them both. Noctis sees, in his periphery, Ignis turn his head as if he's about to protest. But no words come.

\---

Three days after the announcement, Prompto walks out the door of his place to find a car parked outside his house. Gladio is leaning casually against the drivers' side door, arms crossed across his chest. He looks up when Prompto nears. Prompto's steps falter.

_This is it,_ he thinks. _This is the end. Ignis has finally sent Gladio to kill me and get rid of the body._ What do you want to be when you grow up, Prompto? I dunno, a photographer. Animal shelter staff. A casualty of a political scandal cover-up.

But Gladio just jerks his chin and says, "C'mon. We're going for ice cream."

\---

The ice cream has booze in it.

"This isn't really ice cream," Prompto points out as the beer float is set in front of him. It's ice cream in booze, really.

"Figured you'd need it," Gladio says, nodding at the waiter. _I sure do,_ his exhausted tone says. Prompto picks up his spoon obediently.

Prompto and Gladio see each other around every so often, but rarely without Noctis there. It's been a long few years since they first met, and now they're both in the Guard and all — Gladio's always friendly, and they'll probably get along well as soon as Prompto becomes less certain Gladio'll snap him in half like a toothpick at the first sign of trouble with Noctis. Prompto's still working on believing it. Maybe this is Gladio's contribution to the effort, now that it looks like they'll be spending more time together.

Prompto looks around them. The joint is quaint, decorated airily; cute, almost. The menu is full of fruity, candy-colored confections, and most of the other patrons look like college couples. Prompto frowns and digs into the strawberry beer float. This doesn't seem like Gladio's kind of place, only —

Something occurs to him. "Does Iris bring you here?"

"She's fifteen," Gladio says, and Prompto colors before Gladio continues, "Yeah. She can make a pretty mean one of those," he indicates Prompto's drink gruffly. "With our dad's whiskey."

Prompto thinks of the chirpy girl who drops by the barracks every so often to bother Gladio and blush when she spots Noctis and compare muscles with Prompto through exaggerated flexing contests (she likes Prompto because he lets her win, though honestly, it takes less _letting_ than Prompto would admit). "Y'all are not healthy people," Prompto says with a healthy dose of admiration.

"Don't I know it," Gladio says, and taps his beer against Prompto's. "Welcome to the family."

'Welcome to the family' in a girly bar getting drunk on a break-up cocktail. Well, it wasn't like was expecting to _marry in_ or anything. Prompto slurps strawberry foam morosely, trying not to think too hard about it.

Gladio sets his drink down after a while. "Thought I'd be first to get hitched," he admits abruptly.

He sounds uncomfortable. Gladio's not generally one to talk about his love life. Prompto glances at him and wonders if this is supposed to be condolences, or an apology, or something.

Gladio scratches the back of his neck and scowls at nothing in particular. "Supposed to be someone important," he elaborates. "One of our kids is gonna have the ear of the future King. Day in and day out."

Shiva. Prompto wonders how it's like to know the person you're going to spend the better part of your life would be chosen for you from birth.

Noctis — well, they never _talked_ about it. That's what Ignis was for.

Prompto thinks of Lunafreya's determined eyes in the papers, of elegant handwriting on creamy paper. He swallows. He asks, tentatively, "So did — did your parents, you know, love each other?"

"No," Gladio says. He says it easy, like he's used to the telling.

Prompto looks down at his lap. Well, he thinks, Noctis is — at least Noctis is _easy_ to love. Luna isn't bad, either. He tries not to fidget. "What, uh... what about Iggy?"

Gladio waves at the waiter for a refill. "He gets to have whoever he wants as long as they're vetted," he says. "Same as you."

_Not exactly the same,_ goes unspoken.

Which is sort of the point of all this, Prompto supposes.

When the waiter arrives, Prompto orders another as well.

It's more than a few drinks later before Prompto lets out a long breath, fingers tracing absent patterns into the condensation on the outside of his glass.

"We never even got past third base," Prompto confesses, cheeks flushed.

Gladio lets out a low chuckle. "Not what I heard," he says into his mug.

_"Dude,"_ Prompto splutters, _"Not_ cool," but Gladio just shoots him a wry, sympathetic look, and Prompto's indignant mutter trails off.

Gladio shakes his head, rueful. "What did Noct even get that apartment for?" he wonders aloud, amused.

Prompto doesn't answer. Long nights of video games, sweet trashy wine and giggling into each other's mouths and shouting at the characters in the fuzzy-quality soap dramas on the television, falling asleep on top of each other and drooling into each other's shirts, waking up and kissing and moaning and never quite getting there, hands in the drowsy mess of Noctis's hair in the morning (mid-afternoon, let's be honest here), snickering and sticky and weekend-lazy, boots ready for a night out later on in the evening, all caught in brief glimpses, a stack of photographs in a crate in Prompto's closet, snap-flash shots that the world would never have from them.

That was... that was probably better than any sort of fumbled hour he could spend with anybody else. How does Prompto say _that?_

Gladio seems to get it, though, and the rest of the day is spent in more-or-less companionable silence.

Eventually, a Crownsguard car comes to fetch them. It drops Prompto off back at his doorstep, and whatever Gladio reports back to his superiors isn't awful, because the next day Prompto gets his official approval to accompany Noctis to Altissia, and Prompto has to breathe with his arms braced against the wall for a long ten minutes, trying to choke down the lump in his throat.

\---

It's not a surprise, really.

Noct and Luna are old friends. Prompto owes her for... for this. For everything, really.

So he'll be there for them.

He'll be.

\---

(Prompto's last conversation with Ignis about Noctis had been just before the Crownsguard training initiation ceremony.

It had been out on the roof of the Citadel, the wind whipping Prompto's hair into a mess, brilliant blue sky above. Prompto had been holding the fabric of his dress uniform between his fingers — the first tailored getup he'd had his whole life, collar stiff and cuffs stiffer, brass buttons and braiding, but the weight of it had stopped him from fidgeting. He had almost been still. Prompto had been sitting on one stone bench and Ignis had been sitting one the one across from him, their knees almost touching, heads close.

"You understand that they were born into this position," Ignis had said steadily, softly. "Noct and Lady Lunafreya are where they are by virtue of their blood. The same goes for Gladio."

Prompto had nodded mutely.

"They will bear their mantles for the rest of their lives," Ignis had said. "Gladio will more likely than not die in the line of duty one day. I am prepared to do the same." He had looked up then, eyes sharp, keen. "But you, Prompto, have a choice."

Prompto had known. It was what he had said when Prompto had requested the Crownsguard manual from him, a year and some odd months ago, eyes downcast and face red. _Listen, I need... I want to be by Noct's side. That's all._

"This is a commitment. More than a job. You may find it thankless. You may find your duties tasteless, heartless. For the term of your time under the Crown, your life will not belong to you."

Ignis had never looked _sorry_ for Prompto before. Prompto had wondered, then, when Ignis had signed his life away, and if he'd known it when he'd done so. If that was why he was warning Prompto now.

"I'd advise you to consider your decision carefully. I know that this might not have been what you had planned. If you need time — "

"I don't," Prompto had said. "I choose Noct."

Ignis had fallen silent.

Prompto had taken another deep breath, and words had never come so easily to him, as if they'd been waiting. "Noct chose me for me. So I'm gonna do the same for him."

He'd looked up to see the surprise in Ignis's eyes, and the faint smile cross his lips.)

\---

(Did Iggy understand?

That nobody had... nobody, before Noct, had chosen Prompto for _Prompto?_

Did he know what it felt like to be ashamed to be looked at? To not matter at all?

Iggy and Gladio and Noct had their share of issues, and the gods knew Lady Lunafreya probably had it tougher than all of them combined, but all of them had _mattered_. Since they were small.

Prompto hadn't. Not 'til now.)

\---

Noctis comes across the photographs for the last time while cleaning out his apartment.

The disposable plastic gadgets are a thing of days past, days forgotten now. Somewhere behind him, Prompto has his digital camera out again on a strap around his neck. He's giggling at something Gladio's saying, Ignis's voice a distant amused murmur. _Smile for baby, Prince Charming,_ Prompto had said, grinning behind the viewfinder.

Noctis holds his thumb over the first square in the stack.

(Nobody will ever find the photographs, not even after the salvage operations, after the Dawn, ten years hence. They go missing, and remain so, along with one more.)

 

\---

 

The morning on the day they start out is vivid and bright, hot and buzzing, colors like old film, landscape painted wide before them. The sun is warm on the body of the Regalia, warm on the black paint and the black seats, scent of leather, Noctis's hair gel, city smog and air conditioning, and Prompto's got everything he needs on him, camera at his side, revolvers a breath away from his fingertips, just on the other side of the open air.

Noctis smiles slow at him, hands in his pockets, the same blue-eyed boy who'd slept through a roll of film at the desk by the windows, whose indignant yelp was caught in a late-night flash from under fuzzy-worn blankets, whose sleepy smirks and smudged makeup would never be seen on the cover of any magazine.

"Ready to go?" Noctis says.

Prompto's heart is hammering, but he summons his best grin and vaults himself into the car.

Noctis's hand is solid against his own for the moment it lingers, the high-five lasting just a split second longer than — longer than.

"Ready when you are," Prompto says.

Then they draw back.

The road opens up before them, lines in the dust, forever into the distance.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this was originally posted anonymously, and now the reveal is out, so here I am! 
> 
> Written for [swordliliesandebony](http://archiveofourown.org/users/swordliliesandebony). Thank you for the fantastic idea. I'm glad I got to write this, and I'm glad you got to enjoy it. 
> 
> The [getup](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/de/9c/57/de9c57a8aedf2924e287d469996ec907.jpg) Noct is wearing in the photograph. Blame [marmolita](http://archiveofourown.org/users/marmolita).
> 
> All blame for Shakespeare references should be directed towards [redacted, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE].
>
>> _mushydesserts: noctis and prompto would definitely ride two chocobos full tilt at each other yelling . they'd break at least 2 limbs_
>> 
>> _[redacted, YOUR FAULT]: they would. it would be a disaster._
> 
>  
> 
> This was the first gift exchange I've ever participated in, and it was a blast. Thanks all for a good time! And thank you [JosephineSilver](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sealingdesigneejosephine/pseuds/JosephineSilver) for my own [gift](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12366045), ahhh <3
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comment, kudos or drop by and say hi to make my day! :) [mushydesserts.tumblr.com](https://mushydesserts.tumblr.com)


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